WTML: Heart Made Whole

Honest moment: I love weird people. I’m a very strange individual myself so when I meet someone who is also a little eccentric, it brings me joy. Spending time with hippies and free-spirited people gives me so much life!

Christa Black Gifford is a little weird and I love it. She challenges me so much in my faith, what I believe about God and the Bible, and how I view the world. And I’m so thankful for that.

The book Heart Made Whole opens with the story of Christa’s baby girl, Goldie, being born without part of her skull and dying a few hours later. She lays out this traumatic experience with exquisite detail and sets the stage for the reader to better understand the incredible healing work of the Lord.

“No matter how tattered a heart becomes by the punches of life, Jesus has never encountered an impossible case.”

If I can sum up this book in one word it’s hope. Throughout the book, through every single traumatic and gut-wrenching experience she shares, there’s a thread of hope sewn in. No matter the state of your heart, God wants to and can restore it to wholeness, that is Christa’s anthem and she proclaims it boldly.

Throughout the book, Christa recommends stopping and checking in with your heart, a concept I thought was weird and absolutely unnecessary when I first heard her speak on this subject. I thought I was fine and that, because I’m more of a thinker than a feeler, I didn’t need to do this particular exercise. But, over the last few years, I’ve begun practicing this. Honestly, I still feel like a weirdo when I do it, but it’s helpful for a person as disconnected from their emotions as I’ve been in my life.

Christa reminds us of the truth that emotions aren’t necessarily bad. It’s okay to feel. In fact, God is an emotional being too — he’s both perfect and emotional! How amazing is that?! While emotions are part of a healthy internal ecosystem, they shouldn’t be in the driver’s seat.

I encourage you, especially if you’ve suffered through some sort of trauma, to check out this book. If you’re an emotionally distant person or your beat yourself up for feeling anything, Heart Made Whole could be an excellent one for you to read.

Have you read Heart Made Whole? What was your biggest takeaway?

How are you doing emotionally? Do you have a tendency to suppress emotions? Or let them in the driver’s seat?